Myst iPhone Review

By Ned Hepburn on May 8th, 2009

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You may be lucky enough to remember a ridiculously hard game on the PC that was all puzzles, complete frustration, but if you sat through it, one of the best games you’d ever played.

The game was called Myst and it’s one of the best selling PC games of all time, succeeded only by The Sims in 2002. The plot of the game was, well, you weren’t explained anything at the start of the game, just that you were stuck on this island and you had to figure stuff out. That is probably the best description of the game I can muster before going into “what the fuck” territory, but trust me, it’s a very engrossing game that inspires the same kind of fervor in some nerd circles as Jessica Alba in Sin City (tangent: did you hear Angelina Jolie is going to be in Sin City 2? I know, right? Awesome). It truly is a masterpiece, if not just a tad confusing.

Puzzle included scouring this vast landscape for a single piece of paper or trying to find the right constellation coordinates to send your spaceship to (really). Then there’s something about two brothers who may or may not be both lying to you about the other one and something about a blue pill – I think – I mean, it was the 90’s. We were all doing it. C’mon cut us some slack.

The game was released on the iPhone recently and I thought I’d give it a try, for old times sake, as I was pretty young when it first came out and I gave up 20 minutes in to play Goldeneye 64 at my friends place. A lot can happen in 12 years, and I picked it up again for the iPhone. Pretty simple, right? I’d probably have the same reaction as I did when I was 13 and give up after 20 minutes.

How wrong I was. Its games like this that make game like this become games like this. That basically means, this is a classic game no matter what you play it on. It plays exactly the same as the original, and you can point and click with your finger as you would the mouse. This might create a few sad moments trying to utilize those more intricate puzzles – frustrating as hell sometimes – but as with the original game, once you get by there is a giant sense of relief that you – the mere mortal – figured out this crazy video game. It’s predominately a puzzle game, but unlike some $.99 app where you have to get the ball in the hole or whatever, this one is downright mind numbingly difficult at times. I won’t spoil it for you – the game has some real Harry Potter elements after you get going for a couple hours.

It’s a giant app, too, weighing at 727mb. Not something you should download directly to your phone, I’m just saying. But enjoy it, it really is a blast if you enjoy these sorts of things, or flat out just want to see what all the fuss is about Myst.